The author contends that conceptions of citizenship education must be updated to prepare students for participation in an increasingly interdependent, complex, and changing world. Good citizenship refers to the degree to which decisions regarding public affairs are undertaken self-consciously and purposively. Responsible citizenship involves a sensitivity to the ways in which decisions and actions may become part of the aggregative processes that give direction and structure to public affairs. Increasing interdependence has complicated the citizenship process through the advent of an era of scarcity, the growing demands of the disadvantaged for a redistribution of wealth, the mushrooming of subgroup loyalties and divisiveness in national communities, the declining capacity of governments to govern, and the shift of attention in world affairs from military-security issues to social-economic issues. Thus, education must provide students with the ability to assess unintended circumstances, see behavior as the result of role expectations, recognize patterned behavior and the social systems which create the patterns, differentiate historical trends from current dynamics, discern the limits of historical patterns, appreciate the power of industrialization and large-scale organizations, and know when to be outraged and when to suspend judgment. (Author/KC)